England's first Euro 2012 qualifier will be played today, after Fifa decided that some of the club sides who so detest being deprived of their top talent on such occasions might be mildly appeased if they got their stars back a little sooner. Switching qualifying double-headers from Saturday/Wednesday to Friday/Tuesday brought howls of complaints from fans who actually travel to watch their national side in action, but could have unplanned and beneficial consequences for football further down the food chain.

The main result of the move will be the sudden freedom of an army of enslaved football fans, who normally spend their Saturday afternoons watching top-level action either on sofas or in stadia. With Premier League attendances averaging 34,937 so far this season and the Championship's 16,999, about 553,358 people who would ordinarily be going to a big match this weekend will be stuck for something to do. Some of them will spend Saturday afternoon watching Father of the Bride on BBC1, quite a lot of them will go shopping, but a few, perhaps, could be tempted to visit their local lower- or non-league team.

That, at least, is the fervent hope of the people behind Non-League Day (www.nonleagueday.co.uk), who have decided that this is a unique opportunity to get new faces into local grounds (not that unique: it'll happen again on 9 October), and a bit of extra money into the dwindling coffers of the nation's tiniest teams.

Several clubs are running promotions on Saturday, offering cut-price entry to tempt visiting fans. At my local fixture, Wingate & Finchley v Heybridge Swifts in the Ryman North, Premier League or Championship season-ticket holders can get in for a recession-busting £3.50. At Hayes and Yeading United season-ticket holders from absolutely any club in the entire world (except their opponents, Histon) can claim half-price £7 entry.

Of course it's vital to the health of football in this country that the non-league game continues to thrive, but Saturday can't just be about charity (though Glossop North End get kudos for using their match against Squires Gate to raise money for the Supporters' Club's chosen good cause). The football-watching experience must in the end be good enough to entice people to return.

Non-league teams might often be able to offer, for example, a greater sense of community, proximity to the action, easier car-parking, cheaper ticket prices (often not as cheap as you'd imagine, mind), an impressive selection of real ales, the guaranteed absence of Richard Keys and the knowledge that the referee will almost certainly hear when you loudly question his parentage, but the greatest discovery a visitor to lower levels could make would be to realise that a level of competition exists which, however different it is from the Emirates or Old Trafford, is no less compelling.

I feel a little guilty about encouraging people to support Non-League Day, because I myself am obliged to spend the afternoon with my two small children at a three-year-old's birthday party, but I think this is a brilliant by-product of Fifa's rescheduling and hope that it becomes a successful and popular annual outing. If you're tempted, find your local fixture here .

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In other news, £21m was spent by Premier League clubs on Football League players in the recently closed transfer window. This is the lowest figure in the seven years that Deloitte have been compiling statistics on summer spending, and just over 25% of last year's bumper £80m cash injection.

For a bit of nostalgia, a look at the transfers completed in the summer of 2007 takes some beating. Fully £89m dripped into the Football League that summer alone, with Darren Bent moving from newly-relegated Charlton to Tottenham for £16.5m and Kenwyne Jones, Michael Chopra, Jason Koumas, Gareth Bale, Phil Jagielka and Diomansy Kamara all heading into the top flight for fees of £4m or above.

This year the biggest movers were Jon Walters, who joined Stoke from Ipswich for £2.75m, and Brad Jones, the Middlesbrough goalkeeper who became a Liverpool reserve for £2.3m. Though the fact that Jermaine Beckford moved to Everton on a free transfer – he would surely have been Premier League-bound even had he not been out of contract – and Gylfi Sigurdsson's £6m switch out of the country entirely to Hoffenheim slightly distort the figures, this year's dip is big enough to be significant. Is it the stream of quality players that has dried up, or just the money?